Beauty and the Jinx: Magic and Mayhem Universe (Jinxed by Love)

by Cherie Marks

  He stared at her, his eyes ablaze with anger. In the moonlight, he practically glowed with the fury coursing through him.

  “It was your grandmother, wasn’t it?”

  The shame of what he’d discovered overwhelmed her as she nodded silently. She thought it would ease the fire in his eyes, but it only seemed to make it burn brighter. Or maybe there really was fire in his eyes. What was going on? His whole body seemed to be igniting.

  “Zayn? Are you okay? Should I get Franny?”

  “No!” His voice sounded as if he were shouting through a megaphone with many layers of voices coming together as one. “It’s too late.”

  “Too late? What should I do?”

  As if he were in an incredible amount of pain, he threw his head back and roared long and loud toward the starry sky. Light energy emanated from every pore of his body. Ivy jumped in place and stumbled back a couple steps. When his intense gaze lowered and met hers once more, he uttered one word, “Run!”

  She didn’t hesitate. Without looking back, she took off for the house, but she only got a few feet away before the sound of an explosion filled the air and a white, hot haze overtook her, knocking her to the ground.

  Her final thought before losing consciousness was ridiculous, but it’s what it was all the same. She worried for the rose and wondered how they would save it now—and how would she ever get her hole-in-one ball back?

  Chapter 15

  ZAYN WOKE, HEAD POUNDING, ears ringing. He was prone, on his back, on a hard surface, but as he stared at the space around him, he saw...nothing. Absolutely nothing. Everything in his vision was white as a blank page. He had blown himself into oblivion.

  He raised his hands in front of his face and was almost surprised to see them looking so normal once more. The magic had released, and now he had to wonder what havoc he’d wreaked.

  With slow movements, Zayn rolled to his side and propped himself up on his hands and knees. It took some effort, but he got to one knee then pushed to a standing position. Every bone and muscle in his body ached.

  Hopeful, he swiveled in place, looking for any sign of life. But there was nothing.

  Had he decimated...everything? Had he destroyed all he held dear? Had he killed...Ivy?

  “Zayn?” Her raspy voice was music to his ears. She was alive. Somehow, she was still breathing.

  Yet, as he looked around, he didn’t see any sign of her. Where was she?

  Something caught his attention. A little ways away, a pop of red broke the whiteness surrounding him. He moved toward it, but the closer he got, the further away it seemed to travel.

  “Zayn? I need you. I’m scared.” The fear in her voice made his chest tighten. He didn’t want her to suffer. And he didn’t want to be the cause of her suffering.

  The red grew and spilled out from the whiteness. Was it blood? Was Ivy hurt?

  He ran faster but couldn’t seem to make any progress.

  “Come on, Zayn!” Again, the red bubbled out and expanded over the whiteness. It seemed to be reacting to Ivy’s voice.

  He decided he should say something to reassure her that he was here, and to encourage her to talk more. He tried to tell her to keep speaking, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came out. He’d lost his voice. He couldn’t comfort her.

  “You better come back to me. Right. Now.” She sounded desperate, and the red spread all around him. He watched as it grew to cover all the white, even tumbling at his feet. He bent down, wincing at the pain in his legs, and scooped up a handful of rose petals. It wasn’t blood at all. It was his rose.

  He was dreaming. He needed to force himself to wake up. She was alive, and he needed to see the damage he’d done.

  His eyes opened, and his gaze locked onto Ivy’s. She cupped his jaw in her hands but quickly dropped them once she saw he was awake. He missed the feel of her touch.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” She ran those same hands over his chest, he guessed to assure herself that he was okay. “I wasn’t sure if you were ever going to wake up.”

  He reached up a heavy hand and rubbed his forehead. “How long was I out?”

  “All day.”

  With serious struggle, he forced himself to a sitting position. “All day? I’ve been out for a full day?”

  She nodded. “I was so afraid you were going to leave me all by myself here.”

  “Here?” He glanced up where a soft purple covered the sky. He looked around them and was blown away. The colors of everything appeared more vivid and intense than anything he’d ever seen. Were they dead? Was this Heaven?

  As far as the eye could see, green grass, bushes, and blossoming trees covered the landscape where there weren’t violet, fuchsia, and buttery blooms spilling over. This was a natural wonderland, and he had no idea where they were.

  “Where are we?”

  Her worried expression didn’t change. “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.” She looked around the floral scene in front of them and said, “All of this goes on and on forever. There’s a small cottage just over that low hill. It’s unoccupied as far as I can tell.”

  He tried to make sense of the sight surrounding him, but as far as he could tell, he’d never been here before. “I’m at a loss.”

  She collapsed back onto her heels, defeat covering her face.

  “I don’t know if I woke up immediately or if I was out as long as you were, which would mean we’ve possibly been here for two days.”

  His heart skipped a beat. “The tournament.”

  “It’s over by now. I’m sure they didn’t hold it up on my account.” He wanted to reach out a reassuring hand but he held back, unsure about how it would be received. They were in this mess because of him.

  “That’s assuming I didn’t destroy everything and everyone in Asscrack.”

  She nodded solemnly. “What exactly happened, Zayn? How did we end up here?”

  He sighed heavily and stood up. He reached down and felt her soft, warm touch in a tingle that ran down his spine. With little effort, he pulled her up to stand next to him.

  “There’s so much I need to tell you, Ivy. So much you need to know.”

  “We can talk at the cottage.”

  He followed her, scanning the horizon. As far as he could see, she was right. There was nothing more than the largest garden he’d ever seen. Edge to edge greenery stretched in every direction he could look. And, as they rounded the small hill in front of them, something out of a fairytale appeared. A cottage that looked like every forest-dwelling witch’s home. It was a sage color with pink accents of curly wooden decorations and sculpted columns adorning a covered porch. It looked downright storybook cozy. The only thing missing was the candy-coated building materials.

  “Are you sure no one lives here?”

  “As far as I can tell. I’ve checked all day long, and there are no supplies anywhere inside. Surely if someone lived here, we would see scraps of food or something.”

  Concern filled him as he put a hand on her upper arm to stop her. “Then, what have you eaten today?”

  Her stomach growled as if on cue, and she answered, “A whole lot of nothing.”

  He didn’t like how things were going so far in this mystery place, and he didn’t like the fact he had to tell her the truth about her parents and grandmother. But the time had come, and holding onto the truth was only making it harder to come clean.

  Once they were inside the cottage, he surveyed another storybook scene. There was one large room with a kitchenette, including a stove, sink, and a few cabinets; a sitting area with a plush sofa and chair; and one, double bed, bare of sheets or blankets. Fortunately, the coverings for the bed were in a chest set parallel to the iron footboard. There was also a tiny bathroom that contained a toilet and sink—no tub or shower.

  The walls were covered in a dusky pink wood paneling and there were lacey curtains hanging on the four windows that looked out on the lush world around them.

  He sat down on the sofa an
d motioned for her to do the same. She sat in the chair across from him.

  “First order of business, we need to find some food.”

  “Unless we’re eating flowers, leaves, or grass, we might have a little trouble with that.”

  “We’ll see. Second, I have a question for you.”

  A concerned but curious look crossed her face. He really wasn’t sure where to begin but figured he could use a little more information before divulging everything.

  “Yes, I’m freaked the hell out. Any other questions?” She was sitting on the edge of the seat, and he could tell she meant what she’d just admitted. He wanted to soothe her, but he knew things were just about to go from bad to the-last-thing-anyone-wanted-to-hear worse.

  He smiled but didn’t feel any humor. “I get that, but that’s not what I wanted to know.”

  “Then, ask.”

  “What did your grandmother tell you about your parents’ deaths?”

  She sat back slowly. “A requirement from a prominent institution would mean, as a newborn, I would become a student of a warlock with a reputation for evil acts and widespread destruction. My parents wanted something different for me, so they went to this warlock to plead for my freedom. Somehow, they negotiated my release, but they lost their lives in the process. I don’t know much more than that. My grandmother was always very vague about what actually happened, and she refused to answer any of my questions about the details.”

  The process was all too familiar to Zayn. It was exactly how he had come to be at the Niphe Institution of Magic and an apprentice of Grath Suprame, the warlock her parents had challenged...and against whom they’d lost their lives. Even though he’d only been seven years old, Zayn remembered the situation well.

  Yet, he didn’t really know how to tell Ivy that her own grandmother had been responsible for her parents’ deaths. How did you turn a person’s world upside down without totally destroying that person? How could he possibly hurt Ivy now that he’d come to care for her?

  The admission to himself came as no surprise. He’d been falling for her from the moment he’d nearly run over her with the golf cart days ago. But, he couldn’t keep the truth from her. She deserved to know exactly where she stood with her own family.

  “I know of that particular institution. As a baby, I...” However, the words wouldn’t come.

  He needed a little more time to figure out exactly how to tell her. Her growling stomach gave him an excuse to put it off just a little longer.

  “We should get some food first.”

  He stood and strode to the kitchenette. He opened the cabinets and was disappointed to see they were empty. “Do you feel like exploring a little?”

  She agreed food was a priority, and they left the cottage, walking in a direction they hadn’t taken yet.

  But after walking for a good thirty minutes and finding nothing but more and more undeveloped land that neither of them recognized as any place they’d ever been before, they stopped, more confused than ever. It was concerning to say the least.

  “We have absolutely no idea where we are. And we’re royally screwed from what I can tell. Do you think we’re even still alive?” He didn’t like the worry in her voice, but he was beginning to wonder the same things. She still looked beautiful to him, and he had a strange urge to reach out and smooth a hand over her fiery hair. Her eyes had never looked so golden-green, and he felt mesmerized just staring at her. He could’ve kicked himself as he realized what he was doing. This attraction to her was getting ridiculous. He needed to get his head on straight and figure out what was going on.

  “I’m not sure anymore. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “You exploded with light, and I tried to run but couldn’t get away quickly enough. I was surrounded by the brightest light I’d ever seen. When I woke up, we were here.”

  “And the question is...where’s here?”

  “Why are we the only two here? None of this makes sense.”

  Zayn stared back in the direction from which they’d come and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. Something caught his attention though as he continued to stare. There was movement. He couldn’t tell what it was exactly, but the sunlight undulated and shimmered off of something whenever it moved around.

  “What’s that? Do you see that?”

  She looked the way he was staring, raising a hand to her head and brushing back wisps of coppery-gold hair that covered her well-defined cheeks and forehead. He struggled to look away from her to find the mystery object again.

  “I see it! There! I think it’s something alive.” She started toward it. “Come on! Before we lose it.”

  He ran after her, and they both slowed as they got closer. It was a humanoid creature with two arms and two legs and the biggest, roundest head Zayn had ever seen on anything other than a pumpkin. As it frolicked among the flowers, he watched, not daring to get any closer.

  “What is that, Zayn?”

  “I don’t have any idea, but maybe it will have some answers.” He started moving again. “Come on! If we don’t like what it has to say...we’ll eat it.”

  Chapter 16

  IVY WAS BEGINNING TO suspect she knew where they were, or at least, a general idea of where they were. She didn’t know the name of the place or even how they’d gotten here exactly, but she suspected they had been pulled into another dimension. The question was how did they get out of here? It would need to be sooner rather than later because they couldn’t survive more than a few days without food and water, and as far as she could tell, they’d already been without food or water for one day.

  As they approached the strange creature, the only other living being they’d come across, she heard singing. It wasn’t a melody she recognized and the words sounded like gibberish to her, but she knew singing when she heard it.

  “I think it’s intelligent. Maybe it can tell us where we are.”

  Once they were within twenty feet, it looked up at them. It was only about three-feet tall and had a mouth that stretched wide across its face. Its eyes were round and bulging like balloons and its skin was a blue like the natural color of the sky from their own dimension.

  “Stay behind me, in case it attacks.”

  She pushed around him instead. “Oh, please. I can protect myself, Zayn.” But as it opened its mouth, she noticed pointed, sharp teeth, and she slowed down, her bravado taking a quick hit.

  “Maybe we approach together.”

  As they got closer, the creature scrambled out of the flowers and toward them. It clearly was top heavy as it led with its head, its legs scrambling to keep up with the momentum created by its large round noggin.

  It stopped suddenly and stared at them, grinning its scary smile.

  Ivy thought she should let the creature know they weren’t here to harm it. “Hello. We’re friends. We just have a few questions to ask.”

  The creature might have nodded or its head might have gotten a little too heavy for a second, but Ivy took it as a sign of assent. She stepped closer and felt Zayn’ hand on her arm, which she waved away as she knelt down. “Can you tell us where we are?”

  Its eyes unblinking in a terrifying way, the creature just stared for a second before letting lose a string of gibberish in a deep, Barry White timbre. Ivy stared for a few moments, shocked at the sound that emanated from such a small creature.

  “Do you speak English?”

  But the response made the answer to her question clear as another profusion of gibberish was all she got as an answer.

  She stood up and looked at Zayn. “Well, that was for nothing.”

  Yet, the creature tugged at her golf skort, and she jumped at the touch. Without stopping to make sure they were following, the creature turned and ran toward the cottage. One quick assuring glance between them and they took off after the little bobble-head.

  The little guy...or girl...ran straight for the door, turned the knob, and jogged inside the cottage. Ivy and Zayn followed.

>   Once inside, they stopped in the middle of the great room and stared at the immediate changes. The bed was made, the windows were open, and the cabinet doors hung wide, the insides filled to the brim with all types of food—canned, boxed, and fresh. It was baffling and wonderful all at the same time.

  Zayn and Ivy didn’t waste any time. They went straight for the cabinets and started pulling down pasta and sauce and a whole loaf of French bread. It was a dream come true, and once their bellies were filled to the max, they noticed the creature sitting patiently in the chair, waiting for them to finish eating.

  With less hesitation than before, Ivy made her way to the sofa and took a seat. Zayn did the same. They all three stared at each other in silence for a good five minutes before Ivy said, “You obviously want to help us. But how do we communicate?”

  “Co-mooon-uh-caaate.” The creature’s rich voice seemed so out of place with its size, and Ivy was having a hard time reconciling the contrast. But his attempt at mimicking her word gave her some hope that they’d be able to work together to figure out what was going on.

  Zayn was a little more impatient. “Where are we? How do we get out of here?”

  The creature tilted his pumpkin head to the side, coming so close to resting it on the arm of the chair. It seemed to be trying to understand, but as it spewed forth another string of gibberish, it became obvious they wouldn’t be having long, meaningful conversations any time soon.

  Without warning, the creature stood up on the chair, jumped down to the floor, and ran out the door.

  “Wait! Where are you going?” Ivy tried to run after it, but stopped once she realized she didn’t know what she would do if she caught the little thing. Jump on it? Keep it prisoner? After it clearly helped them, there was no way she could be so cruel. So, she let it go and went back inside where Zayn still sat, seemingly confused by the whole situation.

  He searched over his shoulder until their gazes met once more. “What do we do now?”